Email Marketing Resources:

Question 1. Increasing Deliverability

Answer: There are several ways to structure your messages to ensure the highest probability of its delivery.

Although there is no magic formula to compose messages that will not trigger anti-spam filters, there are ways to maximize the chance of your message reaching the subscriber.

1.) Don’t do what spammers do.

One example of how to easily hurt your email deliverability is by using “hashbusters” –misspellings and/or random punctuation in the attempt to fool content filters.

Examples:

F'REE instead of FREE
Op-portunities instead of Opportunities
s^pam instead of spam

and so on...

Using these techniques will only hurt and hinder the delivery of your message. “Hashbusters” are pretty easy to detect and many filters consider them a sure sign of spam.

2.) Subscriber Permission

By using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in, you can send a unique link to a subscriber who has requested to be on your list. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link, verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

This process is step one in the battle for email deliverability.

3.) Subscriber Addresses

When requesting subscribers to opt-in, ask for their "real" or "primary" email address instead of a free email address such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw-away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

4.) List Maintenance

Promptly remove addresses that bounce when sending emails to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed immediately. ISP's track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed mailboxes.

5.) Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. However, most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. When sending HTML, it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

6.) Content

Many ISP filters are based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could hinder your deliverabilty.

Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting and email message. By avoiding hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography, your email will have a better chance of reaching your subscribers mailbox. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don't attempt to obscure words with extra characters or odd spelling, you'll just make your messages appear more like spam.

Images: Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open-rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant through attachments, many users are wary of attached documents. It's often better to link to files via website URL to reduce recipient fear and the overall message size.

7.) CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It's important to have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance.

8.) Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP's as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
http://www.bondedsender.com
http://www.habeas.com

9.) Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP's and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.